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About
The story of the model, actress, and American icon Edie Sedgwick is told by her sister with empathy, insight, and firsthand observations of her meteoric life.
As It Turns Out is a family story. Alice Wohl is writing to her brother Bobby, who died in a motorcycle accident in 1965, just before their sister Edie Sedgwick met Andy Warhol. After suddenly seeing Edie's image in a clip from Andy's extraordinary film Outer and Inner Space, Wohl was moved to put her inner dialogue with Bobby on the page in an attempt to reconstruct Edie's life and figure out what made Edie and Andy such iconic figures in American culture and in our collective imagination. What was it about him that enabled him to anticipate so much of contemporary culture? What was it about her that drew attention wherever she went? Who exactly was she, that she fascinated Warhol and captured the imagination of a generation?
Wohl tells the story as only a sister could, from their childhood on a California ranch and the beginnings of Edie's lifelong troubles in the world of their parents to her life and relationship with Andy within the silver walls of the Factory, in the fashionable arenas of New York, and as projected in the various critically acclaimed films he made with her. As Wohl seeks to understand the conjunction of Edie and Andy, she writes with a keen critical eye and careful reflection about their enduring impact. ‘As It Turns Out’ is a meditation addressed to her brother about their sister, about the girl behind the magnetic image, and about the culture that she and Warhol introduced. The question Wohl tries throughout to answer is: What was it about Edie?
As It Turns Out is a family story. Alice Wohl is writing to her brother Bobby, who died in a motorcycle accident in 1965, just before their sister Edie Sedgwick met Andy Warhol. After suddenly seeing Edie's image in a clip from Andy's extraordinary film Outer and Inner Space, Wohl was moved to put her inner dialogue with Bobby on the page in an attempt to reconstruct Edie's life and figure out what made Edie and Andy such iconic figures in American culture and in our collective imagination. What was it about him that enabled him to anticipate so much of contemporary culture? What was it about her that drew attention wherever she went? Who exactly was she, that she fascinated Warhol and captured the imagination of a generation?
Wohl tells the story as only a sister could, from their childhood on a California ranch and the beginnings of Edie's lifelong troubles in the world of their parents to her life and relationship with Andy within the silver walls of the Factory, in the fashionable arenas of New York, and as projected in the various critically acclaimed films he made with her. As Wohl seeks to understand the conjunction of Edie and Andy, she writes with a keen critical eye and careful reflection about their enduring impact. ‘As It Turns Out’ is a meditation addressed to her brother about their sister, about the girl behind the magnetic image, and about the culture that she and Warhol introduced. The question Wohl tries throughout to answer is: What was it about Edie?
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Reviews
"Beautiful . . . Wohl adds sensitive shading and texture to the group portrait of the Sedgwicks that emerged in Edie"
and a spray of light."
"[As It Turns Out] picks apart how Andy made Edie, how Edie made Andy, and the infinity mirror of their shared identity. A great pleasure of Sedgwick Wohl's writing is that it is sisterly in the truest sense: irritated but protective, dabbed with globs of jealousy . . . Wohl, who has spent decades watching her sister on film, observes her as if looking through a high-powered telescope."
Hillary Kelly, The New Yorker